It rarely gets any credit when you win, but always takes the brunt of your anger when you lose, the humble gaming controller has come a long way since it first arrived on the scene. An essential part of the gaming experience, the guys at YouTube channel 4096 have put together a cool ‘History Of’ video…
It doesn’t matter how old you are there is sure to be at least one games controller than you can remember using like it was yesterday. One you’ve spent many a happy hours / day / week / month with.
Now thanks to a new History of Game Controllers video by YouTube channel 4096 we now have an idea of how the gamepads of today came to be. The video proves that through years of refinement and innovation, we are now well past clumsy designs and in the age of game controllers with superb ergonomics and innovative forms.
Currently, the Nintendo Switch's sleek Joy-Con game controllers serve as the pinnacle of gamepads. Informed by the controller, the Joy-Con furthers the idea of how we play our games providing new avenues of control. Although constantly improving, based on past iterations, game controllers will feature twin analog sticks and four right-side buttons in the foreseeable future, but at the start the Joystick offered up by the Atari 2600 way back in 1977 offered us just the one button to press, and wasn’t particularly built for comfort.
And let us not forget the classic NES rectangular two-button joypad of 1983, or the Mega Drive one of 1988 that was actually shaped to your hand and now included three buttons.
By the time the PlayStation arrived on the scene in 1994 we now had six buttons, then the N64 in 1996 offered us the option of a control pad or joystick, and then the PlayStation of 1997 chucked in vibration as well, and by the mid 2000’s the Xbox 360 had us operating a control pad, two joysticks, four buttons, tow bumpers, two triggers, as well as a back, start and guide button – pretty impressive for one pair of hands!
A true evolution.
Anyway, go check out the video below and see how many of these classics you have gotten your mitts on.